Severe malnutrition or wasting, ‘excruciatingly painful’ threat to child survival

May 17, 2022 Global Author

Severe Wasting: An overlooked child survival emergency, details that around one in five deaths among children under age five, can be attributed to severe wasting.

Triggered by a lack of nutritious food and repeated bouts of disease – such as diarrhoea, measles and malaria – it compromises a child’s immunity.

“Young children who have gone without food, rapidly drop a lot of bodyweight, often exacerbated by bouts of infectious diarrhoea, until they become so thin and frail, they look skeletal,” UNICEF chief Catherine Russell explained in the report’s foreword.

‘Excruciatingly painful’

Unlike famine or starvation, relatively few people have heard of severe wasting, although it affects around 13.6 million children globally under the age of five, and is one of the leading underlying causes of preventable deaths in young children.

“It is excruciatingly painful for the child whose body is battling the condition. Without lifesaving treatment, it is a battle that many lose,” Ms. Russell attested. She also noted that conflicts and climate crises, which destroy access to healthy diets, are “causing that number to rise”.

Life-saving nutrition

But even in stable countries, child wasting has been surging by more than 40 per cent.

For example, in Uganda, child wasting has increased 61 per cent since 2016.

“When a baby or child is this underweight and weak, they cannot eat normally,” the UNICEF chief explained, meaning that traditional food aid – like bags of wheat or soya – cannot save them.

These children need lifesaving, ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), a high-calorie nut paste given as a medical treatment, which can literally mean the difference between life and death.

Despite its simple, affordable effectiveness, amidst a sharp decline in nutrition financing, around 10 million desperate children are not receiving RUTF largely due to the ongoing economic shock of COVID-19.

Ukraine war

Meanwhile, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, both nations are among the world’s top agricultural producers and exporters, has blocked supply lines and impacted global food security, threatening even more children with wasting.

The UN’s food agency suggests that a prolonged reduction of food exports could raise the global number of undernourished people by eight to 13 million people in 2022 and 2023.

Moreover, food, fuel, and fertilizer shortages, combined with inflationary pressures, are causing prices to soar.